


Losers, Lance, and Other L-Words

by mugsandpugs



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, M/M, i've had this in my drafts for ages, someone help these losers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 18:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13793184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: Turns out, the steam a shower leaves on a bathroom mirror can be a great place to leave your annoying housemates messages.





	Losers, Lance, and Other L-Words

Living in a small, government-funded house with four other teenage mutants meant that mornings were always a little rushed. Usually, though, he woke early enough to bypass the quartet of lazybones and have the luxury of the bathroom, and then the kitchen, all to himself. Sleep wasn’t a priority for anyone living as fast as he did.

But some days, like today, he ran a little behind schedule.

Alvers made a face when he gave a cursory knock to the bathroom door and then let himself inside, bypassing the taller teen and making for the unoccupied sink beside the small, cracked window.

The look was undercut by the minty shaving cream giving the Avalanche the overall appearance of Santa Claus, should the Christmas icon feel inclined to wear ripped jeans and a ratty Nirvana t-shirt. Pietro was amused to note that Lance had twisted his long, wet hair into a bun using one of Rogue’s clips.

But that was enough gawking at his so-called ‘leader’ for one day; Pietro was already later than he liked to be. He meticulously brushed and flossed his teeth, gargled blue mouthwash, combed his silvery hair, and applied gel to make his bangs point _just so._ He was distracted from his careful face exfoliation when Lance tilted his head back to carefully shave his throat and the underside of his jaw.

It was a momentary flash of concern that drew his eye-- the idiot was probably going to sever an artery, and then it would somehow be Pietro’s fault for letting him drown, _of course,_ but curiosity kept his focus. He’d never had need to shave before- never had much interest in it, either- but the way Lance did so made it look interesting.

Lance had a rather nice profile when he stopped running his dumb mouth to ruin the effect. Purely aesthetically speaking, of course. His nose was on the large side, coupled with long features and a square jaw. His adam’s apple was prominent from this three-quarters view, and his eyelashes curled to kiss his cheeks when his eyes were pressed closed. The height, square shoulders, and decent arm-muscles didn’t hurt. There was something very grown-up about the whole ordeal that left Pietro a little jealous.

Lance finished his shave and rinsed the suds off before noticing he had a captive audience. “Nice face,” he smirked, leaving Pietro rather confused. Glancing in the mirror revealed that Pietro’s green exfoliant was still sitting like a souffle on his cheeks, giving him a troll-like complexion. He flushed and quickly ducked to wash it off.

Snickering, Lance shook his hair from the bun, pulled his fingerless gloves on, and then, with a flourish, used a fingertip to write a prominent **‘L’** in the leftover steam from his shower before letting himself out. Pietro noticed, not without some petty satisfaction, that Lance had missed a spot: a dime-sized dollop of shaving foam nestled in the dip behind his right earlobe. He was quick to add four letters to the original mirror signage: **L(oser).**

He’d have been content to leave the interaction at that: with Pietro having the last word, as it should be. Only, it seemed that the Avalanche had a stubborn streak of his own. The next day, leaving a smarmy cursive **‘P’** in his own shower steam, Pietro was appalled to note the clear fingermarks spelling out **P(enis)** in Lance’s far inferior penmanship. The nerve!

Pietro smelled a competition in the air, and his proud Maximoff blood surged hot. He would not go down without a fight!

The ensuing mornings ensued with both boys neck-and-neck for the right to one-up the other’s shower signatures.

**L(ame)**

**P(ecker)**

**Freddie!** (This one made an appearance when both boys slept in too late to shower. Nobody had the heart to wipe it away.)

**L(udicrous)**

**P(rick)**

**L(ascivious)**

Clearly, he’d exhausted Lance’s limited and very phallic vocabulary, as Pietro reigned champion for several days following this gem. He strutted with new confidence, pleased at having put Lance in his place. He might be the team leader for now, but someday soon…

**P(reparation H)**

Pietro gawked at this heinous piece of steam-graffiti for a long, long moment, caught off guard by its boldness. No, no, and _hell_ no! This wasn’t how the game worked! This was the point where Lance gave up and submitted to Pietro’s superiority!

A soft snicker just outside had him whipping the door open. “Do you think this is funny?!” he angrily demanded of Lance, who lounged against the hallway’s far wall, eyes hooded, carelessly checking his fingernails. He looked every bit the teen delinquent. Pietro wished he were immune to the effects of such a cliche.

Lance considered, tilted his head. “Kind of, yeah.” He trailed lazy eyes over Pietro’s towel-clad form, eyes narrowing as they tracked water droplets down golden skin. “Why; don’t you?”

“Hurry up in there!” Rogue called grouchily from behind her closed bedroom door. “School starts in an hour.”

Pietro retreated back into the bathroom, but pointed an accusatory finger at Alvers’s chest as he did so. “This isn’t over, Avalanche.”

“I certainly hope not,” Lance replied smoothly, a spark lighting an appealing fire in his dark eyes.

**...**

Pietro deliberately ‘slept in’ the next morning, smacking his alarm clock the second it uttered a peep and zooming with patented Quicksilver speed through his morning routine before climbing back into bed, listening intently to Lance the next room over. Lance’s alarm went off a minute later, beeped, beeped some more, then died with a whimper as Lance flung it with full force into the wall. Twenty more minutes of silence followed before Lance rolled out of bed with a thump and then continued rolling all the way to the door.

He evidently made it to his feet, because receding footsteps led to the kitchen, where he presumably began embalming himself with the coffee Fred had just brewed. Pietro had long since been banned from touching the coffeemaker or any other kitchen appliance. Lance had come dangerously close to crying actual tears when they thought old Stella might not survive her trip through the dishwasher.

At long last, water in the shower began to fall. Cackling to himself, Pietro shot to his feet and crept into the bathroom, already awash in clouds of steam. Vengeance was sweet! He tiptoed to the mirror, a grin splitting his face, when the shower curtain abruptly pulled back again. “Caught you!”

Pietro, a deer in headlights, froze comically still, jaw dropping, as a very wet and _very_ naked Avalanche beamed triumphantly at him. “I thought you’d pull something like this today.” He turned to see what Pietro had written. “ _‘Little dick’?_ Really? That’s the best you could come up with? I'm disappointed.”

Faced with the actual appendage in question, Pietro found his insult falling short-- or rather, long-- of the mark, by several inches. “Genital-based insults seem to be your forte, so it was either that or ‘labia’,” Pietro explained, voice rather flat.

He realized, too late, that he was staring and hurriedly backed up, face heating from pink to an unattractive tomato-red. His bare feet slipped on the damp tile floor and he shot a hand out to catch himself on the bathroom counter. “Fuck,” he swore. Then, more vehemently, “Use _all_ the hot water up, why don’t you?! It’s like a damn sauna in here!”

Alvers considered him as shower water continued to fall. Then, jutting his chin smugly, he took a step from the shower, then another, padding towards the gawking Quicksilver, who wasn’t feeling so quick mentally or physically at the moment. All of his faculties had briefly been short-circuited. Probably waterlogged. The whole room was definitely going to flood.

“You doin’ okay there, Tro?” Lance asked casually, leaning a hand on the medicine cabinet as he dripped over Pietro. Stars, but he was all wiry muscle and _leg, leg, so much leg._  He had hair under his arms and a fine fuzz down his chest, thickening below his navel and curling in a dark thatch over his thighs and oh _God_ he was staring again-

Pietro forced himself to look back into Lance’s faux-concerned eyes, which were popping and sparking now with mischief, and said, very intelligently, “Huh?”

He didn’t maintain a 4.1 GPA in school for nothing!

“I just mean,” Lance explained oh-so-casually, and stepped a little closer. Pietro’s heart, already hummingbird-fast in its natural resting state, quickened to a supersonic drone. “You’re looking feverish. Need me to play doctor?”

Pietro made a noise similar to that of a cat in a trash compactor before finally reconnecting the link from brain to foot. He wobbled from the bathroom, turned, pointed angrily at Lance, and made the same noise again before managing, “You’re dead, Alvers.”

“Okay! Try harder next time!” Lance waved cheerfully before shutting the door in Pietro’s burning face.

Pietro was seething by the time he returned to his bedroom, drumming his fingers on the doorframe as he observed his Spartan-neat headquarters. So it was war the Avalanche wanted? Fine. Then a war he would deliver.

* * *

Lance slept like the dead, Pietro marvelled as he tripped over a pile of dirty laundry. If someone were in Pietro’s bedroom while he slept, well, he’d know it. He’d have known it from first creaking of the door.

He eyed a long brown leg untucked from bedcovers, large square foot dangling over the edge of the mattress. At the opposite end, an arm and hand also jutted free, fingertips almost brushing the floor. Lance, face and all, was otherwise completely cocooned in his blanket, but evidently they hadn’t made one long enough to cover his gangly limbs. Pietro, a dab hand with needle and thread, could have remedied that.

No, no! Lance was the enemy! One did not offer textile favors to mortal foes, no matter how broad of shoulder and tapered of waist they may be. Pietro was here for one thing, and one thing only. If only he could find it in all the mess…

Reaching Lance’s desk, he was not surprised to see multiple dents in the wall where, every day for two months, the alarm clock had been violently hurled. The poor little device, clearly on its last leg, valiantly displayed the time in weak green letters: 5:58. Pietro had only two more minutes to…

“Tro.”

Pietro flinched at Lance’s voice, so soft in his swaddling of cotton, whispering his nickname. Had he been seen? And how?! Lance was so tightly wrapped that surely he couldn’t…

Lance shifted, turning onto his side, his blanket shifting as he did to reveal a bare shoulder and the side of his face. His dreaming eyes were closed fast, rolling side to side softly under his lids, still in deepest of sleep. “Come back…”

His voice was so husky with early-morning croak that it rustled with autumn leaves and Pietro felt abruptly very warm. He couldn’t possibly be…

“Yeah.” Lance’s lips quirked in a dream smile. His hand closed on a fistful of blanket. “ _Just_ like that, Pietro.”

With a start, Pietro realized that the clock now read 5:59. Fuck! He used the eraser-end of a pencil to turn the device off before it could ring. There; task complete. Now he could leave and begin phase two of his plan…

Only, he sort of didn’t want to leave. He wanted to remain and eavesdrop, try to catch an idea of whatever that rascally dream-Pietro might be doing to make Lance smile so. He knew he should feel offended that his image be used as such, even in dreams- it was bad for branding. And yet, there the curiosity remained… and a forming idea to perhaps slide onto the bed and prove himself better than any dream.

Therin lay madness. On light feet, Pietro crept back towards the door. He’d just touched his hand to the knob when he heard Lance’s softly whispered, ”Oh, _fuck,”_ in such reverential tones that Pietro shivered when all the blood in his body migrated south for the winter. He bit his lip at the light creaking of bedsprings and tried hard not to imagine Lance pressing his hips into the mattress. _Damn, damn, damn…_

Once free of the suddenly too-warm room, Pietro walked jerkily to the bathroom and pulled from his pocket a tube of clear balm for chapped lips. He stood on the closed toilet lid and used the balm to begin writing aggressively on the mirror, a trick he’d learned in other foster homes. Like a white crayon on an eggshell, this text would not appear to the untrained eye until dye- or in this case, steam- had been applied. The perfect secret message.

 _Think of grandmas,_ he told himself firmly as he wrote in lightning-fast speed, small letters covering the surface of the mirror. He stepped off the toilet and onto the sink as he continued to write from right-to-left. _A roomful of saggy, wrinkly, sweaty grandmas all doing jumping jacks together…_

Gradually, reluctantly, his Florida-dwelling blood found housing in Pietro’s other extremities and his pants no longer felt quite so tight.

Having written all that he’d intended to say, he added a quick illustration of a beheaded stick figure. It was no Rembrandt, but it’d get the point across alright.

Capping his lip-balm with a satisfying snap, Pietro nodded at his own reflection, deadly serious, and tried not to think too hard on the fact that Lance Alvers had just given him a boner. He was a teenager. Those things happened sometimes; it meant nothing.

(Still, when he rapped sharply on Lance’s bedroom door in an imitation of Mystique’s brusque knock to wake him in time for a quick shower, he did so with some acute smugness. _’Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?’_ Oh, sweet sweet Juliet- it was going to take poor Lance more than grandma aerobics to walk that one off.)

Pietro sauntered into the kitchen, poured himself some cereal, and sat primly at the breakfast table with the others.

“You look like the cat that’s eaten the canary,” Rogue remarked, slathering butter over a bran muffin.

“Yeah,” agreed Todd, waiting hopefully by the window for passing flies. “No offense, yo, but it’s makin’ me a little nervous.”

Pietro preened like a peacock in the sun and said nothing.

He glanced eagerly at Lance’s face when the teenager emerged, dripping and shivering, from the shower and began chugging directly from the milk carton, but he revealed nothing. _Smooth bastard._

It was only later, after _Fred_ emerged from his shower in a cloud of steam, head hung low and confused hurt in his eyes, that Pietro put two and two together and arrived at cold shower central.

What a terrible waste it was when the best laid plans could so easily be foiled by a boner .

* * *

The time for denial had passed.

Pietro Maximoff, as ridiculous and implausible as it was, was developing a _crush_ on Lance Alvers.

This, he could not stand!

The arrogant, cocky prick always stealing his spotlight, bossing them around like this was _his_ show to run. Clearly, Pietro had lost his mind completely.

He drank all the milk and used all the hot water; he slept in and slacked off and swore like a sailor… And still, when Pietro looked at him, he found his face warming, his lips fighting not to smile. _What. An. Idiot._

No accounting for taste, apparently.

Stepping into the bathroom to use the sink next to Lance, Pietro wondered how long their little impasse would last. It’d been a few days since last either had left a mirror message… And he found himself disappointed. What, Lance didn’t want to play anymore? Had he found somebody more entertaining to occupy his thoughts?

Pietro glanced nervously at him a few times, trying to be covert, as he began his own morning routine. Watching Lance tilt his chin up to carefully shave his throat made the breath catch in Pietro’s lungs. He didn’t exhale again until Lance completed the process and dabbed the remaining gel away with a cloth.

“You’re staring,” Lance mumbled, without looking over at him.

“I am _not!_ ”

“You are. It’s okay.” Lance turned to grin at him. “I know there’s a lot to take in.”

Pietro’s face heated as he glared. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’ve just got shaving gel behind your ear. _Again._ ” He rolled his eyes derisively and checked his teeth in the mirror, though he already knew they were perfect. He grinned when Lance turned to check out his ears.

“Where?”

“Oh for God’s sake, right _there!_ ”

“ _Where?!_ ”

In consternation, Pietro reached and caught Lance by the shoulder, holding him still as he stepped close and, with an index finger, swiped the dollop of foam away, then held it out to show Lance. “ _See?_ You do this _every_ time!”

Lance blinked, reached back to touch his own ear as Pietro rinsed his hand off, bemused. “Huh.”

Then it was his turn to grin.

He shuffled a step forward, and Pietro felt the ceramic base of the sink bump the back of his thighs. He hadn’t realized they’d gotten so close, and he struggled to appear unaffected, unimpressed, aloof. He had an image to maintain, after all, even if his heart was now doing some impressive aeronautical feats within the stadium confines of his chest.

“You know what I think?” Lance said, speaking in a low voice, his face bent close over Pietro’s neck. “I’m starting to think that you like me, Maximoff.”

Goosebumps raced along Pietro’s skin. Was it that obvious? He was holding quite still at the proximity of another, but something inside him shook, wanting. He wet his dry lower lip.

“Theoretically speaking,” he began. “Just _say_ you were right- which I’m not saying- But _In theory_. What would that change?”

Lance's smirk only grew smirk-ier. Presumptive jerk. Pietro said IF!!

"Well, for starters," Lance supplied, a playful edge to his voice as though only humoring Pietro's totally valid comments. "It'd mean you could kiss me."

Pietro's weird little heart problem went from alarming to _very problematic_ in the space of time it took the organ to drop somewhere around his lower belly, spreading heat, and then up into his face where it only spread _more_ heat. He was going to have to make an appointment with a cardiologist, and soon. "What makes you think I want to do that?" he asked, his voice a high squeak.

"If, 'theoretically'-" Lance paused to snicker. "You did, then-"

Whatever snarky comment he'd been about to annoy Pietro with was lost when Pietro's lips tripped and fell onto Lance's. Accidentally. It must have been an accident, because they did not consult his brain on the wisdom of this choice. But considering the only response his brain was able to produce at the moment was a buzzing, continuous drone of an " _ahhhhhhh..._ ", maybe that was for the better.

So: lip-lock, accidental. Results: Not entirely unfavorable.

Lance's mouth was _soft,_ for one thing, despite what the sharpness of his smirky smirks might convey. His lips were pliant and lush, and the tiniest, alien burn of stubble- he'd only _just_ shaved; was hair growth his secondary mutation?- a tiny bit thrilling. The scent of his freshly washed skin was pleasant.

Pietro's hands tripped, too, and found themselves sliding through slightly-damp hair, knocking the elastic from the bun loose to tangle in the strands. And then his head was just tipping back like a sunflower might show her face to the sun, and brain activity, slow as it was, began to shut down, and then--

Well.

Okay. At some point it stopped being accidental. Pietro Maximoff was kissing Lance Alvers and, theoretically speaking, he liked it.


End file.
